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‘Parole’ from Poet Mara Mucini at Bagni di Lucca’s Casinò

During last year’s Bagni Di Lucca arts festival I was asked to manage a new section dedicated to the written word. Called ‘Camera oscura’ in recognition of the fact that the area we used had once been a photographer’s shop and dark room, I was given the chance of meeting and introducing several poets from Bagni di Lucca and beyond.

Among those who made the most impression on me was Mara Mucini (see my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/mara-mucini-at-camera-oscura-ponte-a-serraglio/ ) . I loved her expressive and direct way of putting across emotions and thoughts in a poetic frame, both unpretentious and expressing deep life concepts, in a language which was easily understood (that is, of course, if you know Italian. However, Norma Jean Bishop has translated several of Mara’s poems in our Tuscan Magazine ‘Grapevine’ of which she is editor).

Mara’s poems discuss what the Italians so appropriately phrase as ‘la quotidianeità della vita’, i.e. daily life. Those panoramas, clearly, seen from a woman who has had a life-time’s experience working in a largely male environment, can deal with the most hum-drum to the most dramatic events, from ecstatic joy to the profoundest sorrow, from dreams to practicalities, from small local things to large world events.

There is a lack of oratory, a use of simple (but not simplistic) language to express Mara’s thoughts and I warmly congratulate her on her new collection called ‘Parole’ (‘Words’) published by that great Luccan publishing House, Maria Pacini Fazzi, and introduced last night as part of the ‘Omaggio all Donna’ celebrations for International Woman’s day at Bagni di Lucca’s Casinò by another vital writer of our area, the historian and essayist, Natalia Sereni.

(Natalia Sereni on right. Mara Mucini on left)

Natalia introduced Mara’s poems with a paper which was a marvel of sensitivity and literary criticism. Natalia described those important concepts of Mara’s substantial new collection which included the theme of memory in all its multifarious moods, and the Mandala (artfully illustrated by Morena Guarnaschelli) which protects through its circular form, invites one to discover one’s essence through its central point and generates growth and creativity.

Mara then gave a short description of her poetic life starting from her youthful days when she would write poems only to destroy them, because she felt embarrassed at disclosing her intimate thoughts, through to the evening’s triumphal conclusion when she realised pride in her special poetic gift and her wish to share it with her audience.

I would invite anyone who can speak Italian to buy a copy of Mara’s ‘Parole’. It’s a book which gives a valuable insight into feminine intuition and the problems and joys which circumscribe the lives of contemporary Italian women. Mara seeks sentiment but never sentimentality. She touches truths but never platitudes and her poems are suffused with a metric music which displays an all-embracing poetical sensitivity.

It was, therefore most, apt that the virtuoso hands of Anna Livia Walker both accompanied and concluded the readings of some poems from Mara’s new collection with her transcendent touch on the harp. Among the items played were Debussy and Handel which helped to combine words and music in an absolutely immaculate way.

I have no doubt that, in terms of artistic integrity, impact and presentation Mara can now only be described as a very significant Italian lyricist. The presentation of her poems was, in my opinion, the highlight of the marvellous week dedicated to Italy’s (and the world’s) women. And it was the best attended too!

Here is a selection of Mara’s poems from her collection ’Stelle’ (stars) which I presented and mostly translated with Mara at last year’s Bagni di Lucca Art’s Festival

(Trans:
STARS

Warm summer night, serene night,
in a sea of stars you lose yourself
even under the light of the full moon.

In the immensity that envelops you
you look for answers that cannot be found,
answers you have always sought, and always will.

You turn to that dark light,
asking, praying, inveighing with silent words,
again and again losing yourself in the mystery.

You perceive the meaning of the word “Divine”
and in that quiet grandiosity of stars
hope to see your destiny laid before you.

And so, enchanted, you name them one by one:
the names of those who have left you,
those you love, those you have not forgotten.

At your call they appear more luminous.
Then, ignoring the deceit,
they fade like precious objects,
and in the pure air rests the scent of roses.